On the surface Google and Facebook don’t really appear to be rivals. Google specializes in products like productivity tools, search, email, and so on, while Facebook seems to be largely thought of as a social network. However in recent times, Facebook has improved upon its own search algorithms to the point where some believe that they are attempting to rival Google.
However it seems that despite the rivalry and perhaps for the greater good, it has been announced that both Google and Facebook will be working together. In an announcement by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, this will see Google start to display search results that can be found within Facebook’s mobile app, such as public profile information, along with “deep links” that will take users to different parts of Facebook’s app.
Clicking those links while in search will basically open up Facebook’s mobile app to the relevant section, depending on what you’re looking for. That being said, this is hardly an altruistic move for Google. According to Chris Maddern, co-founder of mobile-app discovery startup Button, “If people lose faith that they will find things they need by searching on Google, that’s bad for the company. Anything Google can do to maintain that position is good.”
However as it stands, it seems that for now the feature will be exclusive to Android. However Google did announce a similar feature for iOS’ Safari back in October, but as far as Facebook is concerned, this feature will be limited to Android for now.